Pole-sitter Carpenter cool, calm before Indy 500 start

INDIANAPOLIS – As his wife, Heather, was doing a live interview with a local TV station at 7 a.m., Ed Carpenter was back in his motorcoach, fast asleep.

Carpenter, who will start from the pole position when the Indianapolis 500 begins at 12:12 p.m. ET today, was calm and collected shortly after arriving at his team's garage around 8:30 a.m. Not bad, considering most everyone sleeping on the grounds is awoken at 5:30 a.m. by a blast that signals the opening of the gates.

"I always try to sleep as long as possible here," Carpenter told Paste BN Sports. "You wake up when they start doing PA announcements when the garages are opening and the bomb goes off. But I was able to go back to sleep after that, which was nice. I didn't know if I wasgoing to be able to. It tells me my nerves aren't any different than they are every other year."

"You've got to stay cool," he said. "It's easy to get anxious just because it's such a big day. There's so much going on. But when I start thinking about the job these guys have done and how good this car is, I become more confident and calm. I feel ready to go."